Box drill jig



y 1962 M- CZERNEC ET AL 3,033,061

BOX DRILL JIG Filed Sept. 19, 1961 2 Sheets-Sheet l INVENTORS M/ c H.054 UZEfi/VEC BY g z w ATTORNEYS y 1962 M. CZERNEC ET AL 3,033,061

BOX DRILL JIG Filed Sept. 19, 1961 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 l BY z w 9% '76 80 ATTORNEY/5 United States Patent 3,033,061 BOX DRILL JIG Michael Czernec, 3449 E. 69th St., and Abram Morgentaler, 14585 Woodward Ave., both of Cleveland, Ohio Filed Sept. 19, 1961, Ser. No. 139,247 7 Claims. (Cl. 77-62) This invention relates to drill jigs and more particularly to a box drill jig for housing a workpiece in a manner to enable the workpiece to be drilled from all six faces of the ig.

Box drill jigs are normally in the form of a box provided with bearing surfaces adapted to rest on the work table of a drill press or other machine tool. They are usually fairly heavy and held in position by their own weight so as to save the time of the operator which would be consumed in aligning the tool with the work and clamping it in place. The faces of the box are provided with hole patterns corresponding to the pattern of the holes to be drilled, reamed, tapped or counter-bored in the workpiece held in the jig. With this construction the box can be rested on any one of its faces and the workpiece machined by guiding the tool through the different holes in the hole pattern on the opposite face of the box.

It is one object of the present invention to provide an improved box drill jig of the type described above having a master frame which can be quickly and accurately assembled in a number of different sizes so as to support a plate on each of the six faces thereof having predetermined hole patterns therein and which are easily removable to enable plates with different hole patterns to be substituted therefor.

It is another object of the present invention to provide a very rigid accurately machined box drill jig made from a plurality of component parts which can be readily assembled and at least some of which can be interchanged with one another to construct the drill jig to suit any particular workpiece.

A further object of the invention is to provide a box drill jig having four corner posts rigidly and accurately connected together by suitable rods in a manner to enable a plate with a predetermined hole pattern to be slidably positioned on each of the six faces thereof without disassembling the rods or corner posts.

It is a still further object of the invention to provide a box drill jig which is adaptable for use wit-h a great variety of workpieces of different sizes and shapes.

It is a still further object of the invention to provide a box drill jig which can be quickly and easily assembled and disassembled for making jigs of different sizes or shapes having an accurate rugged construction.

Other objects and features of novelty of the present invention will be specifically pointed out or will otherwise become apparent when referring, for a better understanding of the invention, to the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 is an isometric view of a box drill embodying features of the present invention with one of the side drill plates thereof broken away and another of the side drill plates removed;

FIG. 2 is a plan view of the box drill jig illustrated in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a front view of the box drill jig illustrated in FIG. 2;

FIG. 4 is a partial side view of the box drill jig illustrated in FIG. 3;

FIG. 5 is a partial sectional view taken along the line 55 of FIG. 2;

FIG. 6 is a partial sectional view taken along the line 66 of FIG. 3; and

FIG. 7 is a partial sectional view taken along the line 7-7 of FIG. 2.

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Referring to FIG. 1 a box drill jig 10 is illustrated which embodies features of the present invention. It is comprised of a master frame made up of four corner posts 12-18 fixed in parallel spaced relation by eight rods 20-34 to form the four corners of a box. The ends of each of the rods extend into counterbores 36 in the corner posts 12-18 and are secured to the posts by bolts 38 having enlarged socket heads 40 on the ends thereof, as most clearly illustrated in FIG. 5.

Each of the corner posts are provided with three longitudinally extending slots 42, 44, and 46 on the faces thereof. Each slot 44 is aligned with another slot 44 in the confronting face of an adjacent corner post and each slot 46 is aligned with a slot 46 in the confronting face of a different adjacent corner post. A face 48 of each of the corner posts is also provided with three parallel transverse slots '50, 52, and 54 which cooper-ate with the corresponding slots in the other faces 48 to enable three hori-' zontal drill plates 56, 58 and 60 to be slidably disposed therein. The'vertical slots 44 and 46 similarly receive vertically disposed side drill plates 62, 64, 66 and 68, the side drill plate 68 not being shown in FIG. 1 for the sake of clarity, but being clearly illustrated in FIG. 2.

The front and rear edges of the horizontal drill plates 56, 58, and 60 clear the vertical slots 44 so as not to interfere with the placement of the side drill plates 64 and 68.

Each of the drill plates is fixed against sliding movement and accurately positioned relative to the corner posts by a plurality of dowel pins 70 having enlarged threaded 3Q heads 72 on the ends thereof as most clearly illustrated in FIG. 6. The dowel pins 70- extend through passageways 76 in the corner posts and in to blind holes 78 in the drill plates, suitable guide bushings 80 and 82 being fixed in the pasageways 76 and blind holes 78 respectively, to provide accurate alignment and to resist wear. The ends of the passageways 76 are internally threaded as at 84 to enable the enlarged threaded heads 72 of the dowel pins to be threadably engaged therein to secure the dowel pins in position.

With this construction the four corner posts can be very accurately machined and rigidly held in accurate spaced relation to one another by the rods 20-3-4, the ends of which extend into the counterbores 46, as previously described, to provide a very accurate and rugged construction. Once the master frame is amembled in this manner, the drill plates having the desired pattern of holes '90 therein, each preferably lined with a guide bushing 92, may be selected and slidably disposed between the corner posts and fixed in accurate predetermined positions by the dowel pins 70 as previously described. If the workpiece to be machined is relatively large, the intermediate horizontal plate 58 may be dispensed with and the workpeice suitably held in a fixed predetermined position Within the box. The workpiece then can be drilled, reamed, counterbored, etc., from all six sides of the box without interference, and the guide holes will guide the tool into the workpiece at the desired points. If it is subsequently desired to change the hole patterns being machined in the workpiece, any one or all of the drill plates can be removed and new drill plates easily substituted in their place having the different hole patterns. If a smaller workpiece is to be machined, the intermediate horizontal drill plate 58 can be reinserted to enable the smaller workpiece to be suitably fixed between the plate 58 and either of the plates 56 or 60. If desired, suitable legs 94 may be removably fixed on any or all six faces of the box drill jig to support the jig a predetermined distance above the surface of the work table of the machine tool while the workpiece within the jig is being drilled from the opposite side. Of course, the legs can be made of any desired height and in the embodiment illustrated they are screwed on to the corner posts as most clearly illustrated in FIG. 7.

While it is apparent that the embodiments described above are well calculated to fulfil the objects of the invention, it will be appreciated that many changes, revisions and modifications may be made without departing from the spirit or scope of the invention as defined by the following claims.

What is claimed is:

1. A box drill jig comprising four corner posts, rod means interconnecting said corner posts in parallel spaced relation to form four corners of a box, a plate having a predetermined hole pattern therein slidably engaging and supported between a pair of said corner posts, and means for fixing said plate against sliding movement relative to said pair of posts in a predetermined position.

2. A box drill jig comprising four corner posts, rod means for interconnecting said posts in parallel spaced relation to form four corners of a box, a longitudinally extending slot in one face of one of said corner posts communicating with at least one end thereof, a second slot in the confronting face of an adjacent corner post aligned with said first slot and communicating with the end of said adjacent corner post corresponding to said one end, a plate having the opposite edges thereof slidably supported in said two slots, and means for fixing said plate against sliding movement relative to the slotted corner post in a predetermined position, said plate having at least one tool guiding hole extending transversely therethrough.

3. A box drill jig comprising four corner posts, a pair of spaced rods extending between each adjacent pair of posts and rigidly secured thereto to maintain the posts in parallel spaced relation to form four corners of a box, each of the confronting faces of the corner posts connected by each of said pairs of rods having a slot therein laterally displaced from the plane defined by the pair of rods therebetween and aligned with another slot in another confronting face, a plurality of plates each having at least one tool guiding hole extending transversely therethrough, the opposite edges of each of said plates being slidably disposed in a pair of said confronting slots to slidably support the plate between the corner posts, and means for fixing each of said plates against sliding movement in a predetermined position relative to the corner posts.

4. A box drill jig comprising four corner posts, each of said corner posts having a pair of faces on the sides thereof disposed perpendicular to one another, each of the faces of each corner post having a slot therein communicating with one end of the corner post and extending parallel to the other slot in the corner post, eight rods interconnecting said corner posts and secured thereto to rigidly maintain the corner posts in parallel spaced relation to form four corners of a box with each of said faces lying parallel to and confronting another of said faces and with said one end of the corner posts oriented so as to be on one side of the box, each pair of rods extending between confronting faces being laterally displaced relative to the slots in the faces associated therewith, a plurality of plates each having at least one tool guiding hole extending transversely therethrough, each of said plates having the opposite edges thereof slidably disposed in the slots in a pair of confronting faces to slidably support the plates between difierent pairs of corner posts, and means for accurately fixing each of said plates against sliding movement and in a predetermined position relative to the corner posts.

5. The invention as defined in claim 4 wherein a first pair of said faces define a first plane and a second pair of said faces define a second plane parallel to the first plane, and wherein at least one transverse slot is formed in each of the faces defining said planes extending completely thereacross perpendicular to the first mentioned slot therein, each of said transverse slots being aligned with the other transverse slot to enable another plate to be slidably supported therein perpendicular to said first mentioned plates.

6. The invention as defined in claim 5 wherein said last mentioned mean comprises a plurality of dowel pins removably mounted in said corner posts and projecting through said slots into said edges of the plates.

7. The invention as defined in claim 5 wherein a plurality of legs are fixed to the corner posts on different sides of the box with ends thereof lying in a plane parallel to the plate on the same side of the box.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,813,439 Gracon Nov. 19, 1957 

